Nearly 36 years to the day after Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents, a California Parole Board panel has rejected Erik Menendez’s request for parole.
The decision, which came down early Thursday evening, is likely a sign that Lyle Menendez will receive the same outcome in his separate hearing, scheduled for Friday.
The denial won’t become official until the CPB review process is finalized and sent to Governor Gavin Newsom for approval. This includes a separate hearing where the panel will explain their reasoning for denying parole. Newsom will have final say in the matter but he has previously indicated he’ll follow the recommendations of the Parole Board.
Thursday’s hearing was held virtually from San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, as will Friday’s.
The Menendez brothers have been imprisoned since 1990, when they were arrested for the murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, which took place Aug. 20, 1089 when Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21.
After a lengthy legal battle that saw their first court case end with a mistrial, the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1996. But they became eligible for parole in May of 2025, after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life; the eligibility distinction being that they were younger than 26 when the crimes occurred, per local law.
Erik and Lyle Menendez, now 54 and 57 respectively, became major figures in pop culture due to the tabloid coverage of their 1990s criminal trials, as well as the calls more recently for their release. Their story was most recently portrayed in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “Monsters.”
